


Patience and Time

by thedevilchicken



Category: Bloodsport (1988)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 08:33:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13120032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Every once in a while, Ray and Frank meet again.





	Patience and Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/gifts).



> A Yuletide treat for Aris!
> 
> Note: this story is 100% about the fictional Frank Dux from _Bloodsport_ , played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, and not the actual Frank Dux. ;)
> 
> Title from Tolstoy: _The two most powerful warriors are patience and time._

There are times that Frank thinks he really doesn’t deserve a friend like Ray. 

As a kid, he never exactly made friends all that easily. It’s not hard for him to conjure up the memories even now, nearly thirty years later, not that he’s spent a whole lot of time dwelling on it because why would he do that? He’s come to the carefully considered conclusion that his past is part of him but that it doesn’t _define_ him, from his childhood to the kumite and beyond, or at least he likes to think it doesn’t. But he still remembers the guys who talked him into entering the Tanaka house that day, remembers all the crap he’d already done by then to make them like him, and sometimes it still pisses him off that back then the only thing he really wanted was to be one of the cool kids for once. He wanted to be popular.

He’s seen the same thing a lot with kids in his classes over the years, he thinks, in other people’s dojos at first and now in his own. They just so desperately want to be cool, and he guesses that’s why they come to martial arts classes in the first place, so they can fight in schoolyards and look tough even though they’re told right from the start that’s not what martial arts are for. He doesn't teach them ninjutsu or karate so they can pretend they’re Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan or whichever movie star the kids are idolizing now - he doesn't bother keeping up. Still, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were always more kung fu than karate, jeet kune do and wing chun rather than ninjutsu, so comparisons are pretty tough to make. He tries to teach people the difference and sometimes he thinks he gets through.

Of course, martial arts have never really been Ray’s thing, at least not even half as much as they’re Frank’s and have been since that day in the Tanaka house. Ray’s still more into bar brawls and motorcycles and classic rock, though Frank guesses ‘classic rock’ was still just plain old ‘rock’ when Ray was a kid and he's teased him about that more than once over the years, when he's played air guitar to Led Zeppelin in the dojo like he's having a seizure. But the most martial arts thing about Ray is still brick-breaking and even that’s more to do with brute strength than with skill. 

After the kumite, Ray was unsurprisingly advised that maybe breaking bricks against his forehead wasn’t exactly the best way to ensure his continued long-term health. Of course, Ray being Ray, that isn’t exactly advice he’s followed to the letter since then; there are just so many bricks in the world, more than anyone could ever really need, and if you looked at it the right way then he was really performing a kind of public service. So Ray's always said, at least. Frank remains dubious. 

Ray’s great love affair with brick-breaking was probably why, three years almost to the day after their trip to Hong Kong, three years after the kumite and Chong Li and all that bullshit that Frank has tried to forget about or at least let go of because hell, it’s not like he did any of it for himself, his phone rang. There was a doctor on the other end of the line, a straightforward woman with a less than straightforward name Frank still isn’t sure he could pronounce the right way, even if he took six months of elocution lessons, and not just because he’s stubbornly clung to his French accent almost to spite himself. Still, everything else she said but her name made sense to him: basically, when it came down to it, Ray Jackson was in the hospital. He’d been beating his head against bricks - or beating bricks against his head, because Frank guesses which way around that goes depends on your point of view - like that had ever been generally considered a sensible pastime for a grown man with a long history of concussion. The only numbers he had on him when the ambulance let him out into the ER and the ER tossed him up to some other department for observation were a Chinese takeout place somewhere in Brooklyn and Frank Dux’s home line. 

“Sure,” Frank remembers telling the doctor. “I’ll come get him.” And he hung up the phone. 

He remembers how he didn’t even think twice about it, even then. After all, it turned out Ray wasn’t in New York anymore, despite the takeout number in his wallet - he was only a few hundred miles up the coast in San Francisco, not on the opposite side of the country three whole time zones away, not that time zones had ever figured into Ray's thinking. Frank could be there in his car door to door in six hours, even figuring in a little extra time for shitty traffic, and the doctor said they needed to keep him in overnight for observation anyway, so that all worked out pretty well. He’d go pick Ray up from the hospital in the morning and he’d bring him back to LA. Someone needed to keep an eye on him, Frank guessed it might as well be him. Besides, he knew how Ray felt about hospitals.

“Well hey, Frankie!” Ray bellowed when Frank wandered into the room the next day, in a voice loud enough to wake the guys in the neighboring beds and probably trouble the residents of the morgue downstairs, too. “Sorry to drag you into this but the ladies want me outta here. Guess I’m just too much man for ‘em. Can't keep their eyes off me, ain’t that right?”

The nurse nearby gave the two of them a brief, amused smile but she was probably right to escape without saying a word, Frank thinks. He knows Ray’s sense of humor; it hasn’t changed at all in all the time he’s known him. 

Ray finished up changing while Frank reminded himself to turn his back - he knows the Army didn’t do a whole lot to teach him social niceties, even as an officer - then they left together, Ray’s big, tattooed arm looped around Frank’s shoulders. He remembers how good it was to see him, even if he smelled like a weird combination of three-day-old takeout food and the inimitable odor of the ER. Frank’s seen the inside of the ER himself more than once over the years, more than twice, maybe fifteen times or more by then back when he was still only somewhere around thirty and not just because of injury but because he was there when Shingo Tanaka died, when Senzo Tanaka died, and then Mrs Tanaka after that. But she was still alive that day, still living alone in the house and Frank still drove out to visit her every Sunday, made tea - without a blindfold - and sat with her by the koi pond. He has a feeling some of those fish were older than Shingo was the day he died. He has a feeling they’ll still be there the day _he_ dies, too, and he finds that strangely reassuring. 

They swung by Ray’s hotel, got lost twice along the way until Ray wound down the passenger side window of Frank’s beaten-up old Chevy and yelled an enquiry to the next woman who passed by. She looked more amused than really bothered by the huge guy hanging out of the window in a muscle shirt and a Harley Davidson bandana, for which Frank remembers being thankful, especially because it turned out she knew exactly the place Ray meant. They grabbed Ray’s stuff, which was just enough to fill a duffel, then they left and drove back down the coast with the radio on and Ray talked and talked right over the top of it like his head didn’t hurt at all, with his seat pushed all the way back and one foot up on the dash. Honestly, Frank was too pleased to see him to care about heel scuffs on the glove box. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year, since Ray had turned up unannounced at Christmas and so Frank had invited him over. He’s not sure his parents ever got over meeting Ray Jackson; he still remembers the horrified looks on their faces as they all sat down to dinner. It was likely something to do with the fact Ray was wearing shabby denim cutoffs and a Van Halen t-shirt to the dinner table, and had already chugged a beer before anyone got the chance to say grace, but that was Ray and Frank just couldn’t fault him for it. 

Frank was still living over the top of a dojo back then, rent-free because he opened the place up in the morning, closed it up at night and fixed showers and lights and jammed-up locker doors and all those kinds of things whenever he wasn’t teaching. He was pretty good at it, both the odd jobs and the teaching - he’d been given an adult intermediate karate class to himself by then and he remembers how he enjoyed it. He had a class that night and after they’d stopped for food, because Ray apparently had a craving for pizza and Frank didn’t feel much like cooking anyway, Ray went down into the dojo with him. He couldn’t leave him on his own, after all - he’d brought him down to LA to keep an eye on him. 

Ray watched the class. He was surprisingly quiet throughout, Frank thought, sitting barefoot on the sidelines in his dojo-inappropriate clothing, and every time Frank glanced his way Ray was watching, his brow furrowed and his head cocked, while everyone else ignored him. And afterwards, while the class members were pulling on their shoes and filing out of the room, Ray wandered out onto the floor to where Frank was still scooping up the seiza bench he’d been kneeling on throughout his students’ katas. 

“You think you could teach me to do that?” Ray asked. 

Frank remembers looking him up and down as he folded in the legs of his portable seiza and Ray looked strangely hesitant, strangely anxious, like the question said more about him than he’d meant it to. Maybe Ray expected him to say no. He thinks he expected him to tell him he was too big or too heavy or too dumb or too much of a klutz but Frank just clapped him on the shoulder and said, “There’s no reason you shouldn’t learn, my friend.”

Ray smiled. One thing Frank’s noticed about Ray over the years is he smiles with practically his whole body because every emotion he has is present in every last little part of him. It’s also why he’s a truly lousy liar and loses at cards every time he plays, Frank thinks, and probably why biker gangs never really worked for him, either - he just can’t help showing his hand, no matter how hard he might try not to. Of course, you do still have to be looking to see it. Frank sees it, because he's looking. 

Frank folded out the sofabed for Ray later that night. Ray talked so damn much that they both wound up falling asleep on it, side by side. 

Somehow, in the morning, waking up with Ray didn’t seem anywhere near as awkward as it might have. Frank was just pleased to have him there. 

\---

“You didn’t have to cook, bro,” Ray said. 

Frank remembers shrugging as he served up crispy bacon and eggs sunny side up and Ray looked anything but like he minded the idea. Frank wasn't a great cook, which his father hated because the guy was a professional chef with his own restaurant, but he'd learned enough over the years to put together a decent breakfast and his French toast had impressed more than one girl the morning after the night before. Janice had swung by once or twice by then while she was in town and Frank hadn't exactly objected to the idea of her staying the night with him and cooking her breakfast in the morning. She was always cheerful company, even when it was more about a story than it was about him. She's married now, has been for decades. Another couple of years and Frank thinks he'll be teaching her grandkids. 

They ate together, then Frank had to head down to the dojo. There was an exhibition organised for a few days' time, some of the younger students performing katas as a group, a few matches, a couple of the instructors putting on a display. There'd be weapons, board-breaking, all a kind of open house to bring in new students, not that they were struggling but Frank's learned that in business, more custom is always better than less. And maybe what was knocking off his game was the idea of being involved in a display when before it had really only been about the fight and the form and the training, not about attracting paying customers - the timing of his katas was just a bit off, his punches lacked power, his kicks were too tense to be really crisp, and all the stretching in the world just didn't seem to help. 

"Y'know, Frank," Ray said, "there's a reason wing chun says you need to be relaxed."

Frank raised his brows at him. "You've been learning wing chun, Ray?"

Ray grinned. "Nah, I saw a documentary once. But it makes sense, right?"

Frank really couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I guess so," he admitted. 

"So, maybe what you need to do is relax."

The problem was, as sensible as that sounded, Frank had no earthly idea how he was going to manage it. 

Frank caught a quick shower then they spent the day out, wandering around the neighborhood. They ate lunch at a little Chinese place that reminded Frank of one afternoon in Hong Kong, sitting at a table eating with chopsticks that Ray hadn't been able to get the hang of in the start but even back then Ray hadn't been the kind of guy to let it get to him. They'd sat there for over an hour, Frank teaching him how to hold the sticks in his hand, how to move his fingers, how to get the noodles from the bowl to his mouth without dropping them down the front of his shirt, and though they'd spent half the time laughing and Ray's shirt got stained with sauce, it turned out Ray was a pretty quick learner. By that time, there in LA, Ray was pretty expert. But Frank still couldn't say he felt a whole lot more relaxed when they were done. 

"You should just get laid, Frankie," Ray said, and Frank half-choked on a bite of carrot. Ray patted him on the back and said something about the Heimlich Manoeuvre that just made Frank laugh through his choking, which didn't exactly help. 

"I don't really have a lot of options that way, Ray," Frank said, once he'd recovered. 

Ray shrugged but Frank thinks the look on his face should've at least made him suspicious. Back then, after something like ten years in the US Army, after three years after that as a gainfully employed karate instructor, Frank knows he was still naive. 

He taught three classes back to back that evening: after-school classes for beginners, followed by intermediates, followed by assisting the owner with the advanced class while Ray sat on a bench by the wall and read what Frank was pretty sure was a copy of Playboy stuffed inside a copy of a martial arts magazine the dojo subscribed to that Frank found dry as the paper it was printed on. And Frank's high kicks were still off. His punches were downright spongy. After they were done, Ray put down the magazine and helped him tidy up the room, and he gave him a quick ten-minute intro to karate on the dojo's main floor, just how to breathe and how to stand and he was pretty sure Ray just wanted to get to the kicking and punching but he kept surprisingly quiet and did as he was told. Maybe that should've told him something, too. But his moves were _still_ off. 

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Frank said, sitting on the sofabed in his place upstairs a little later, like he wasn't watching Ray across the room between his fingers. 

"You just need to relax," Ray told him, like that much wasn't obvious, and he meandered across the room to him, barefoot in his muscle tee and cutoff jeans, and knelt on the bed behind him. He put his hands on Frank's shoulders and squeezed just a little, and Frank winced. It wasn't that he didn't like being touched because he liked being touched just fine, and it wasn't that he didn't like being touched _by Ray_ because Ray was his friend and that was fine, too, but it felt strange. Maybe because he'd never really gotten a massage from anyone he hadn't been sleeping with and he definitely wasn't sleeping with Ray except he'd _slept_ with Ray, right there, the night before. 

"Jeez, you're tense," Ray said, and he dug in harder with his thumbs and Frank's idiotic internal compass - the one that had told him to go AWOL from the Army and attend a secret fighting tournament he'd been expressly told to miss, the one that had gotten him to West Point and into the Army in the first place, the one that had told him Janice wasn't the one but didn't stop him meeting up with her sometimes - went haywire. Ray was touching him. Ray was touching him in a way only his girlfriends had ever touched him, and he didn't know how to react except Little Frank apparently did. His cock took absolutely the wrong kind of interest and when he tried to wish it away, it just got harder. It seemed like nothing was turning out right. 

"Hey, take off your shirt and lie down and I'll do it right," Ray said, and that seemed like an excellent idea to Frank just to hide the reaction he was having. So he pulled off his shirt and stretched out face-down on the bed and when Ray straddled the back of his thighs and ran his thumbs down the length of his spine, from the back of his neck down to the waist of his sweatpants, he realized just how huge a mistake he'd made. All Ray's hands on him did was make it worse till all he wanted to do was rock his hips against the mattress till it was over and he could think straight again. But he kept himself still. He's not sure how, but he kept himself still. 

"Y'know, Frank, you really do just need to get laid," Ray said, really laying in with his hands like he knew exactly what he was doing, and it felt a lot like he did. "No ladies in your life, huh?"

"Not right now," Frank replied. The strain in his voice seemed pretty well masked by the fact he was talking straight into the pillow. 

"No friends you can call?"

"You're pretty much the only friend I've got, Ray."

Ray hummed thoughtfully as he smoothed his hands over Frank's shoulder blades. 

"I guess I _could_ give you a hand," he said, and Frank's traitorous cock gave an interested twitch at the idea. 

"That's not what I mean," he said, quickly. "I didn't--"

"Yeah, I know. I'm offering." Ray ran his hands down to the waist of Frank's sweats. His thumbs nudged down just under it, catching the waist of his briefs, too. "I mean, c'mon, Frankie. What's a blowjob between friends, right?"

Frank spluttered something about that not really seeming _friendly_ as he tried to turn and Ray moved off and left him shift onto his back. And he'd really just meant to object, to say something about how he really didn't need any help and the whole thing would pass soon enough, but then Ray raised his brows as he glanced down at the front of Frank's sweatpants. 

"It's not what it looks like," Frank said. 

"Really? It looks a lot like a hard-on." Ray reached over before Frank could even think about stopping him; he told himself his reflexes must have slowed, too, as Ray pressed his palm down over the bulge in Frank's pants, but that probably wasn't the truth. " _Feels_ like one, too."

"Well, it is. But--"

"I can help."

"I don't think--"

"It doesn't have to mean anything." Ray gave a light little squeeze with his thumb and his forefinger. "You'll feel a whole lot better after. Cross my heart and hope to die."

Frank paused. He looked at Ray, who seemed genuine enough about it, and he shifted a little and felt Ray's hand warm and firm against his cock. He took a deep breath and let it out again slowly. Then he nodded. Ray beamed. 

"I swear you won't regret it," he said, and he tucked his fingers into the waist of Frank's sweats, caught his underwear too, and Frank lifted his hips as Ray pulled down. In a couple of seconds he was bare down to his knees and Ray wrapped one big, rough hand around Frank's cock, just holding him there while Frank took two handfuls of the crumpled sheets and held on tight, wondering what the hell he was doing. 

Ray squeezed just underneath the head of Frank's cock and made his breath hitch and his throat feel tight, then he rubbed the moist tip with his thumb. Frank hadn't realized how long it had been since the last time he'd done this, or how good it would feel, or that _Ray_ of all people would ever be doing this to him, and then Ray shifted and leaned down and licked him, base to tip. He took the head of his cock into his mouth, flicked with his tongue, and Frank's hips bucked up completely against his will. Ray snickered and pulled back, planting one big hand at one of Frank's hips to keep him still. 

"Try not to choke me, okay?" he said, grinning at him, and Frank felt himself blushing hotly. Then Ray went back down and he _went back down_ with Frank's cock in his mouth and a lot of enthusiasm. 

It turned out Ray was really good at it. He stroked what little of Frank's cock he couldn't get into his mouth and sucked him, teased him with his tongue in all the right places while his long hair that had apparently gotten longer since they'd met tickled at Frank's thighs and Frank wondered where and when Ray had acquired that skill. He didn't ask. He just lay there trying really hard not to move too much until his muscles were almost trembling with it and he came in Ray's mouth with a sort of sudden, strangled gasp of a moan. And after, Ray just grinned at him then went to grab a couple of beers from the refrigerator while Frank tucked himself back in. When he got back, it wasn't quite like Ray pretended nothing had happened; it was just like, to him, nothing _unusual_ had happened. 

But it _was_ unusual. And sure, so the next afternoon Frank stepped into the exhibition and everything just worked, there was nothing wrong with him at all, and maybe that proved Ray had been right. The thing was, for him, things had changed. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to look at Ray the same way again. And when they trained together over the next few days, when they talked together, when they ate and they drank and watched shitty TV together, Frank wasn't even sure he wanted to go back. 

Six days later, Ray left. They hugged goodbye at the dojo door while the taxi stood waiting. 

"Don't be a stranger, Ray," Frank said, wishing he'd stay but he didn't know hot to piece the words together to ask him. 

"Hey, you can't get rid of me that easy," Ray replied, and he clapped Frank on the shoulders, frowned a little then cupped his jaw in his big hands like there was something on his mind, but the moment passed. He patted Frank's cheeks and grinned and turned away. He got into the cab and waved as it left. 

Frank knew he was going to miss him. 

\---

He missed him. 

He missed having him around and the constant chatter and teaching him in the dojo after hours, and he couldn't forget how his mouth had felt and how easy it had been, somehow. He got himself off to that, more than once, to thoughts about Ray it had never occurred to him to have before but now there they were, and he wondered if maybe he'd been tense because of Ray, because of something he hadn't realized he'd wanted till Ray had gone ahead and shown him. And time passed, months passed, a year and then almost two and sometimes Frank would still find himself thinking about him. Not even just when Ray called out of the blue or sent a note at Christmas scrawled on the back of a beer mat. 

Then, suddenly, he was back. 

It was the day of Mrs Tanaka's funeral and Ray had been in LA for three days by then. Frank had been busy with the funeral arrangements - with the Tanakas' only son dead, he was all they'd had left, and so he'd taken time away from work to work out all the details and he'd called Ray, out of the blue, told him what was happening like he didn't have another shoulder to cry on and he guessed he really didn't. He hadn't expected Ray to drive out there; he'd been living in Texas for fourteen months, working as a bouncer at a strip club, and he'd quit to ride his bike west to be there. 

Ray stood with him at the funeral. He wrapped his hand around Frank's wrist where no one could quite see, and Frank was grateful for it. And then, after, they went back to the Tanakas' house that he knew he'd inherited because he'd seen the wills, and they sat out by the pond for hours, till after dark, Ray just talking and talking, about guys he'd thrown out of the club, the girls, how he still fought sometimes but working doors paid better. Then they went inside and Frank rolled out two futons side by side on the floor in the spare room because his room at the dojo seemed a million miles away. He was exhausted. He fell asleep still listening to Ray talk. 

And when he woke in the morning, Ray was sprawling - his feet were sticking out from under the sheets and his head was resting on Frank's abdomen, rising and falling with his breath. Frank lay there and watched him, his hands tucked up under his head and his undershirt riding up and Ray's hair tickled the strip of exposed skin by the waistband of the shorts he'd slept in. 

Ray moved. Ray opened his eyes and he smiled and he shifted his head just far enough to look up at Frank over the length of his chest and Frank reached down and mussed Ray's hair even more than it was already. Ray snickered and turned and dragged up Frank's shirt and blew a ridiculous raspberry against his stomach in retaliation but the way he was kneeling showed off the morning wood in his boxers. Ray looked at him. He looked at Ray. His chest felt tight. His eyes widened. It was like no time had passed at all and they were back in his room over the dojo, on his crappy creaking sofabed. 

"Hey, don't worry," Ray said. He went up on his knees and sat back on his heels, still in his boxers and t-shirt and mismatched sports socks. "I'm not gonna take it out and shake it out you."

The problem with that was that in that moment, Frank wasn't sure he didn't want him to. The look on his face must've said so because Ray frowned and he glanced down at the front of his shorts, fidgeted with the fabric like that would make things less obvious, then looked Frank again. 

"Hey, Frank?" he said. 

"Yeah, Ray?"

"Do you want me to take my shorts off?" he asked. 

And okay so he probably should've said no, he probably should've looked appalled, but for a second Frank was speechless. A second after that, he nodded tightly and told him, "Yes."

Ray stood. Ray took off his shorts and Frank watched him, lying there flat on his back. Ray stroked himself as he knelt back down on the futon on the floor and Frank watched that, too, as Ray shuffled his knees apart and tucked his t-shirt up underneath his arms to get it out of the way. Ray touched himself, slipped his free hand down to squeeze his balls as he stroked his cock and Frank watched _that_ , too, feeling his own cock filling up hard inside his shorts. Ray's cock was big just like the rest of him, like Frank had imagined while he'd told himself he wasn't thinking about it at all, in the shower, in bed at night, but he knew he'd thought about it. Now there Ray was. He could've reached out and touched him. He didn't. 

Ray stroked himself and Frank watched him do it and he hitched up his own shirt, shifted around so he could pull it off over his head and then stretched back out. He lifted his hips and shoved his shorts down and Ray cursed under his breath, _Jesus Christ, Frank_ , but Frank didn't touch himself. He just watched Ray, watched his hips buck up against his hand, watched his face flushing hot, watched him clench his jaw and hiss in a breath through his teeth before he shuddered and came. His knees were planted so close to Frank's side that he came all over Frank's abdomen and Frank laughed out loud, suddenly, surprised, not totally sure what he'd expected that morning but Ray Jackson wearing nothing but an Iron Maiden shirt and a pair of sports socks was _not_ it. 

Ray tried to apologize but Frank stopped him because he didn't need to. Frank wiped himself off on Ray's discarded shorts then he went up on his knees, too. He led Ray's hand down to his cock and Ray stroked him, one hand squeezing around him, the other resting at Frank's shoulder, and Frank rested his head down, his forehead against Ray's collarbone. Frank came, squeezing hard at Ray's biceps, and they washed up after. Frank kissed him in the bathroom and then pulled back quickly, surprised he'd done it; Ray just grinned, so Frank kissed him again. It didn't seem wrong.

Ray stayed for three weeks after that, hanging out in the house with him, slipping back into training with him, slipping back into bed with him at the end of each day. Frank moved his stuff out there to the house and he wanted to ask Ray to stay, he really did - Ray could've found a job in LA, they could've trained together, they could've kept on doing what they were doing together after the lights were out, stretching out side by side, stripping each other down, Ray's mouth at Frank's throat as they fumbled like teenagers. But he didn't ask. And, three weeks later, Ray moved on again. Frank tried to, too.

It was that way for years. Frank started his own school, teaching out of the house at first till he had enough students that he hired a hall, then bought a hall, made a living teaching all the things that Senzo Tanaka had taught him. Every now and then, Ray would stop by - sometimes he'd stay for a couple of days or sometimes it would be a week, two weeks, a month. Ray would help out with classes sometimes and they slipped right on back every time, like they'd both been waiting for it, like they'd both been thinking about it and Frank knew he had, at least. Every time Ray left, he thought about him, his hands and his mouth and his cock and his too-long hair, his crooked teeth, the way he paid attention whenever Frank taught him, the way he grinned when he cracked a joke or made him come. 

Ray was there for Frank's thirty-seventh birthday. He was there for his fortieth and his forty-second. Ray was there for his forty-fifth birthday, waiting in the house after Frank got back in from class at the dojo he ran just a twenty minute walk away, and he was sitting there by the koi pond with a cast on his arm and a huge band-aid above one eye. 

"Did you lose another argument with a brick?" Frank asked, taking a seat on the bench beside him. 

"Lost an argument with a highway," Ray replied. "Looks worse than it is but I might've totalled my bike. You mind if I stay a while?"

Frank looked out over the pond, over the cherry blossoms floating on the water, the ripples and the breeze. Ray was back again and it was just like that first time back in the apartment over the dojo downtown, it was just like every time after, but he was forty-five years old by then and Ray was almost fifty. 

"I don't mind," Frank said, and he glanced at Ray, sidelong. "How about you stay this time?" 

He knew what he'd said because he'd been trying to say it for years, and Ray grinned right back, beat up but still living but that's pretty much been his default state since the two of them met. Ray grinned, and he's never left again. Frank's pretty sure he was just waiting for him to ask him to stay. Frank's pretty sure Ray knew he just needed time. Frank's thankful Ray gave him that.

That night, Frank slicked Ray up and rode him, slowly, muscles straining, Ray's hands at his waist and his cock pushed right up inside him. The next morning, Ray pushed him down and settled over him and they did it like that, face to face, flushed and breathless, careful of the cast around Ray's arm. He healed up fine, just like he always does, though there's a scar just over his left eyebrow to commemorate the loss of the bike. He bought a new bike not long after that and he still breaks bricks against his head like an idiot, when he's not teaching the self defense class at Frank's dojo. Ray's body is less temple and more roadside burger joint with a liquor license, just like always, and Frank's always kept in shape. Ray's never changed, and Frank's never thought to ask him to. Frank's never changed, and Ray's never asked him to, either.

There are times that Frank thinks he really doesn’t deserve a friend like Ray, who accepts him like he is. As a kid, he never exactly made friends all that easily, and he's not great at it now he's older, either - he has a whole lot of acquaintances, a handful of employees, dozens of students; he has old Army buddies that he hunts with sometimes, like Ray has biker pals he drinks with some nights, but real friends are pretty thin on the ground. Honestly, he doesn't mind that. 

There are times that Frank thinks he really doesn’t deserve a friend like Ray, but other times he knows that's not the truth. 

Other times, he knows they deserve each other.


End file.
